An Old General
by impaitentmuch
Summary: In the heat of battle Kanda somehow creates an illusion that takes on flesh and blood, and now will not go away! On the surface this illusion is an old friend and -for the most part- accepted as a welcome return, but what is the truth beneath the smiles? Rated for safety.
1. Chapter 1

Well, I haven't posted a story in ages! My bad, I have so many ideas but not the discipline to edit them enough to post. This one I am not completely happy with either, but mainly because my idea here doesn't start until the next chapter. This is the 'I should add more detail beforehand' part of it. I also am not very good with writing action so this entire story is a tad outside my comfort zone, but oh well, enjoy it or not- that's up to you!

Standard disclaimers apply

* * *

It was chaos. Kanda was engaged in battle by time Lenalee, Timmy, Marie and the finders arrived. Two level five Akuma were towering above the destroyed village, mocking the tired and battered samurai.

The newly arrived exorcists were immediately fighting as well, leaping fearlessly into the fray. They automatically split into pairs to fight. Marie and Timmy quickly took care of all the lower level Akuma that were watching the battle. Marie catching them in his strings and Timmy leap frogging through their bodies to purify them. Lenalee found herself at Kanda's side, tugging him out of the way of an energy blast.

"Kanda!" She yelled frantically. "Are you hurt?"

The man did not immediately answer but wiped blood from his mouth and death glared the Akuma.

"KANDA!"

"Che, of course I can. I won't lose to this." He spat.

"We won't lose to this," Lenalee snapped back. She was near breaking point and he could see it. The war had suddenly accelerated in ferocity and Lenalee's world was being threatened like never before. Every battle, every injury, every death was fraying her already fragile mental state.

Kanda sighed and grabbed her shoulders. "We will destroy them all."

The girl smiled in an uncharacteristically evil manner and opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by an explosion beside them.

Time for talk and reassurance was over; the battle could not be delayed. The exorcists all joint forces and somehow took one Akuma down, the second proved to be stronger. It caught all aerial attacks, throwing them mercilessly to the ground. It dodged Marie's strings repeatedly and threw energy blasts at him with surprising precision. Marie's energy was taken up with swiping the blasts away from him. They fought for hours not gaining any ground or advantage whatsoever. Eventually exhaustion and injury took their toll on the exorcists. Their blood stained the grounds, Kanda's ran in a river. He had been taking a lot of direct hits, pushing his already strained healing ability to the absolute limit.

Timmy was knocked unconscious when the level two he was in was destroyed violently and he was thrown to the ground. Two finders were able to drag him to relative safety behind some rocks away from the fighting.

Marie flung an energy blast away from him, but did not see the second blast following it until too late. He was hit and severely wounded.

Kanda and Lenalee knew at that moment that unless reinforcements arrived at that exact moment they were all toast. The Akuma knew it too.

"You are lost little exorcists," it gurgled at them. "Stay still so I can crush you and put this to an end quickly."

Its foot started to lower over their heads, too large for them to escape it. Kanda squared his shoulders and Lenalee positioned herself defiantly in a desperate effort to try to hold it up.

As the Akuma slowly put his weight onto them, they realised that they had lost. They both said a quick apology to the people that would miss them, to God for failing him, to the innocence for not being strong enough to fully utilise its power, and finally they vowed to die fighting.

Witnessed only by the dumbfounded finders, Kanda's river of blood was twisting and writhing. It began to grow upwards, into an almost human figure. A flash of light suddenly emitted from it, and it began to move rapidly towards the desperate exorcists.

A mighty yell cut through the air, a female's desperate cry, "YUU!"

Then the blood creature disappeared underneath the foot, out of the sight of the finders. The Akuma roared in pain and fell back, staggering in shock and grabbing miserably at its foot, which had been sliced in half.

A woman stood before Kanda and Lenalee, holding a sword before her and breathing heavily.

Something strange was happening to the Akuma's body. Wisps of smoke were trailing the length of its arms and falling from its fingers.

"Ignite," the strange woman commanded and the smoke flickered with the orange and red of flame.

As they watched, the Akuma began to claw desperately at its body, howling as it tore off its own limbs, and then plunged its arm through its own torso exposing a fire that burnt in its chest. The flames leapt greedily at the open air, catching and consuming the Akuma's armour. With one last wail, it disappeared into oblivion leaving only embers to fall to the earth.

"What just happened?" Lenalee exclaimed as the dust settled. "Who are you?"

The woman turned towards them, she was older than them but not by much. She was Asian but clearly had some European heritage. Her eyes were deep cobalt blue and her blue/black hair hung long down her back. She wore a black dress that flowed around her ankles, a short black coat and simple black boots. Her coat had a strange symbol on it, similar to the Black Orders one, but of an older style. The symbol was gold and stood out against the all black that she wore.

She gave the stunned exorcists a huge happy grin in greeting.

Kanda lunged forwards, "ALMA!" He yelled in warning. The woman spun, barely deflecting Tyki's attack.

The Noah stepped back, laughing at this turn of events.

"We meet again," he said.

"Your ugly mug again," the woman countered, her voice measured and cold.

"I met your mini me recently," Tyki informed her.

"Quite the devil, wasn't he?"

"Just as energetic as you, I thought."

"Just as insane as well, I had noticed."

Tyki chuckled, "well, I expect a few decent fights now that you are back. The Order does like to meddle with human experiments don't they?"

"I'm not here as a result of the Black Order, Noah. I am not sure how I am here actually."

"Well, when you figure it out come visit me and we will talk about it over dinner."

The Noah doffed his hat to her, and turned to bow to the two exorcists behind her before vanishing.

The woman sighed and turned to face them again.

"Hello Yuu," she smiled, her voice now filled with absolute joy and excitement. "It has been a while."

"Alma," Kanda replied tensely. "What are you doing here?"

"You set me free," she said thoughtfully. "I think I'm here to set you free. Mugen called me back to this world."

"That is going to go down well with the higher ups," Kanda snapped.

"Oh, who cares what they think," Alma brushed off his rudeness.

"I'm sorry to be rude," Lenalee interrupted. "I am Lenalee; may I ask who you are?"

The woman smiled at her, "hello Lenalee. I am Alma Karma, an old, and previously deceased, General of the Black Order."

* * *

Voila! Now I can try to explore who Alma Karma and 'Lotus' were before they were fast healing scientific experiments of the Black Order. Who knows where this is going to go!


	2. Troubled Investigation

Finally loaded a second chapter. This is so far away from my original idea for this chapter but I decided to just go with it.

Standard disclaimers apply!

* * *

As soon as the small party of exorcists and finders arrived back at the Order after a mission already being dubbed as a miracle, they were whisked to interrogation.

Timothy and Marie were quickly found to be useless in the investigation. Certainly, neither of them had yet fully recovered from their injuries. Neither of them possessed the ability to remain awake for their share of the questioning. Eventually they were sent to the head nurse, who had some choice words to say about the delay in their medical treatment.

The finders faired much worse. They were the only witnesses to the dramatic revival of the lost General despite not really understanding what they had seen.

"His blood just became _her_," did not quite convince the hierarchy that this turn of events was untainted by dark magic, or something just as bad.

"The blood just seemed to gain its own life-force," was equally scorned. The unfortunate two were given a crash course in dodgy science experiments, and after the truth serum was finally successfully administered (those scientists really need to invest in a labelling system) they were officially free to go, but were kept in quarantine until the end of the investigation. The head nurse was called in to treat them for several strange disorders, cat ears and pig tails to be specific. She had quite an opinion about that.

It was the last three who caused the investigators the most issues.

Lenalee was so scared of them that she clammed up and disappeared into an impenetrable little world where she did not acknowledge the presence of anyone else. Even Komui went largely unnoticed and responded by not leaving her side, Komulin XII standing guard outside her room. There was havoc wrecked on a daily basis, but no-one could bring themselves to destroy the giant robot.

Kanda was being treated like the scientific experiment that he was. Strapped to a table in a laboratory somewhere underneath headquarters he was being poked and prodded by emotionless doctors in white coats. They drew blood time after time and ran test after test on the samples. Somewhere Mugen was being examined as well, an investigation that was turning up no results at all.

He was questioned frequently as well, but even the best interrogator could not coax anything out of him that was not in his official report anyway.

However, it was the general herself who caused the most mayhem. Alma was very adept at escaping her confines and the CROW who watched her. She was frequently found in the kitchen, apparently attempting to try every dish from every country.

She appeared in Komui's office, lecturing everyone about how a cluttered working space meant a cluttered heart and promptly led a cleaning and filing party. She even managed to trick the CROW into helping when they finally tracked her down.

She was reported at every headquarters, simply appearing in the grounds, adding her two cents and disappearing again. She was even spotted checking out both of the headquarters that had been destroyed, tutting and shaking her head as she examined the rubble.

She found her way onto several missions and finder investigations. She taught Miranda a dance that involved flame throwing and was so successful at it that the timid woman emotionally announced it to be the only thing she could do well. She also managed to teach Krory how to play blackjack and left promising to teach him poker one day, leaving him to an emotional outburst.

Everywhere she went people fell in love with her open and bubbly personality. Stories of her friendliness spread like wildfire, and legends of her bravery made her a hero in the eyes of all. All, except those who were tracking her who were starting to really hate this woman.

Eventually Kanda also broke through his restraints and evaded capture merely to get his soba. Apparently the bread and soup he had been getting was not up to scratch and Kanda without his soba was a scary thing indeed.

"YUU!" His name was yelled out as soon as he stepped foot in the cafeteria. The missing General was leaning out of the serving window waving a ladle crazily.

He glared at her and marched over. "Do not call me that!" He hissed.

"Why not? It's your name." She dismissed him and went back to her soup. Kanda frowned at it suspiciously.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Soup," Alma served him out some which Kanda very gingerly tasted.

"It's bland, and there are strange lumps in it," he told her, sounding extremely annoyed.

"It is chicken," she responded. "Chicken and water and some white stuff. I may have misplaced the recipe, that's all I can remember."

"Get out of the kitchen!" Kanda ordered sternly. No way was he having her near his soba!

"That is no way to talk to a lady!" A finder stepped up to her defence. Before Kanda could turn and bite his head off, Alma sighed dramatically and waved her ladle again splattering them all.

"One day I will cook you a good meal Yuu, and you will be happy."

"Your place is NOT in the kitchen," Kanda snapped.

"I have a place?" Alma acted cute, opening her eyes excitedly and dropping her head to her shoulder.

"Not in the world of the living," came the cold reply.

There was a stunned silence for a moment. Then Alma sighed, "That is very cold. True, but cold."

"That was absolutely cruel, you bastard!" The finder from before was absolutely outraged. "I will teach you some manners!"

Kanda glanced around him. Finders surrounded him on all sides, cracking their knuckles threateningly. Many of them had been looking forwards to punching him for years.

Alma squeezed through the serving window and stood next to him protectively.

"Oh please dear finder," she begged. "I would not like you to get hurt!"

"There is no way we would let a woman's honour be so coldly crushed, Miss."

"Oh, that is so sweet." Alma turned and hugged Kanda. "Yuu, isn't that sweet? They think you would hurt my honour!"

He shrugged her off with a _che_.

The line of finders paused briefly at this confusing gesture.

"I was wondering before, miss," one of them said. "How do you know Kanda?"

"Well," she stopped to think of her answer. Kanda clenched his jaw and looked away from everyone.

"We used to be lovers!" came the loud and happy response.

When the CROW appeared in pursuit of their two escapees moments later, they encountered many finders frozen as still as statues and several more who had fainted. There was no sign of the ones they sought, however.

* * *

Da-da! Future chapters will have more about Lenalee. Hopefully a new chapter of the actual manga goes up before I post again though! Fingers crossed, touch wood!

Thanks for reading


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